ittle chasm in the ills which the enemy alone could not inflict; the
entire coasting trade destroyed, and even the little pittance of
intercourse from one port to the other in the same state destroyed [by
the embargo], the planters of the Southern and Middle states, finding
no market at home for their products, are driven to the alternative of
wagoning them hundreds of miles, in search of a precarious market in
the Northern and Eastern states, or permitting them to rot on their
hands. Many articles which are, or by habit have become, necessary for
comfort, are obtained at extravagant prices from other parts of the
Union. The balance of trade, if trade it may be called, from these and
other causes being so entirely against the Southern and Middle states,
the whole of our specie is rapidly travelling to the North and East.
Our bank paper is thrown back upon the institutions from which it
issued; and as the war expenditures in the Southern and Middle states,
where the loans have been principally obtained, are proportionately
inconsiderable, the bills of these banks are daily returning, and
their vaults drained of specie, to be locked up in Eastern and Western
states, never to return but with the return of peace and
prosperity."[204]

The isolation of North Carolina was extreme, with Cape Fear to the
south and the occupied Chesapeake north of her. The Governor of the
central state of Pennsylvania, evidently in entire political sympathy
with the national Administration, in his message to the legislature at
the same period,[205] is able to congratulate the people on the
gratifying state of the commonwealth; a full treasury, abundant yield
of agriculture, and the progress of manufacturing development, which,
"however we may deprecate and deplore the calamities of protracted
war, console us with the prospect of permanent and extensive
establishments equal to our wants, and such as will insure the real
and practical independence of our country." But he adds: "At no period
of our history has the immense importance of internal navigation been
so strikingly exemplified as since the commencement of hostilities.
The transportation of produce, and the intercourse between citizens of
the different states, which knit more strongly the bonds of social and
political union, are greatly retarded, and, through many of their
accustomed channels, entirely interrupted by the water craft of the
enemy, sinking, burning, and otherwise destroying,